Crooked People Do Crooked Things
by MorraHadon
Summary: People come and go in the Apocalypse. It's a fact of this new life. But it's how you connect to those people when you have them is what matters in the end. And when a angry figure threatens to kill Carl upon first meeting, they all knew that this was someone who has going to leave an impact on them that they weren't ready to experience.
1. Chapter 1

**No idea if I'm gonna continue this, but I have at least 3 chapters worth of material for this story for the meantime. There is an OC but there's no romance between my character and any of the others. I do not own the Walking Dead, if I did there would be little to no plot and nobody would watch it. Anything you don't recognize is mine. **

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><p>Maybe they should have gone in the morning. Hershel could have used up what was left of his supplies, Maggie could have pulled through until daybreak, and then they would have set off on a search for more medical supplies.<p>

A lot of thoughts Rick had recently were like this. Questioning and doubting his decisions and whether or not he did the right thing, or if this was a smart move. At any moment something could happen to him that would take him away from Carl and Judith. Or worse, a mistake he made could hurt them.

Going out when the sun had started to set is one of those moments. He brought long Daryl on the trip, the only man Rick trusted to have his back. Silent but steady as he always is, Daryl held his crossbow in front of him, his eyes peeled like a hawk watching for any sign of movement that wasn't the three of them. Daryl had a big mouth at times, especially when he doesn't know you that well, but he had a good heart, and he was a good hunter, both for food and for danger. If Rick could only have one person at his side, it would be Daryl.

Carl came of his own accord. He was 14 now. More of a man than a boy, especially with what he has seen and done. Old enough to make the decisions to come out with them as backup. Rick's old sheriff hat sat a top his head, and a gun in his hand; Carl looked dangerous. That was the only word Rick could think of to describe his son. In the regular world, Carl would have been entering High School, making bad choices like skipping class and causing trouble. But now Carl's bad decisions revolve around protecting his own kind, deciding whether or not taking a human life is right. It was worrying. Rick would never admit it, but he was worried about his son. Wanting nothing more to just protect him from all the bad things in the world, to make sure Carl didn't become one of those bad things. One of those bad people. In this world, it was all too easy to become one the bad guy.

The three of them pressed forward. Weapons in hand, walking silently towards the boarded up building. It looked as if maybe it had been a pharmacy, but now it was run down and dark. Wood boarded up the glass that had been broken, the paint chipped away by more then just time by the look of the multiple bullet holes. It was something that had seen more than it's fair share of horrors. Scattered around the parking lot were walkers. Not live walkers, dead ones. These ones had been taken care of. Some with a simple bash to the head, others looking like they had put up a struggle with whomever had killed them.

These ones had been long dead.

Daryl side stepped towards the door, peeking down to look at what look like a wire. He gently grasped it in his fingertips and followed with his eyes to where it went went. It came out from under the front door and up into a window on the second floor. The window was boarded up except for the tiny hole in the corner, but off specifically for the wire to fit though.

The Grimes men held their own guns more steady. This place looked like it had been used after the end of days. Like this was some sort of makeshift place for a while. Maybe whoever was in it last had left behind enough supplies.

Without a word, the formed a triangle around the front door. Daryl on it's left, ready to open the door, with Carl on the right pulling out the wooden block keeping it secure. Rick was directly in front, ready to take on whatever came out at them.

But nothing did. With a loud smash the door flew open the moment the wood was gone and Daryl turned the knob. It was loud. Anything that was inside was now alerted to their presence.

It wasn't completely black inside. There was a vague amount of light that was seeping in through the wooden boards. Their footsteps were light as could be, not making a sound to alert any walkers hiding in the shadows, waiting for their next meal.

Each searched through the front lobby flash light in hand, looking for any sign of where medical supplies would be kept. Chairs and couches in what seemed to be a waiting area were torn and hardly usable any more. Blood stained most of them.

Carl jumped over the counter to the receptionist desk. If anything had once been usable, it was long gone. Not even pencil shavings were kept, all that was there was a chair with a missing leg and a smashed computer monitor.

That's when Rick heard it. It was so quiet that he wasn't even sure it was real. But the looks Daryl and Carl were giving him assured him that they heard it to. A beep.

Remembering the wire Daryl picked up outside, Rick looked to the door. His eyes trailing the wire along the bottoms of the walls and then trailing up towards the upper right hand corner of the room. And there it was.

Daryl was the first to speak. "What in the hell..."

Rick stared at it in disbelief. A security camera. It was turned on. The little blue light had beeped on and was now live. How the hell was there a working camera in here? Where was it being fed to? Who turned it on?

Rick considered this one of those moments where he made a terrible decision. He walked towards the camera without checking his surroundings. He got close enough to see the little camera piece inside the overall object when his foot felt it. A trip wire.

This is why he trusts Daryl so much. Before Rick could react, he was being slammed to the ground, just as a giant pile of wooden shelves fell from a spring hidden in the rafters down to where Rick had stepped on the trip wire.

The two men helped each other off the ground about to ask Carl if he was okay, when they realized. No. No he wasn't.

The moment they got off the ground, a figure stepped out from the doorway to the stairwell and grabbed Carl. On instinct he yelled. "Let me go!"

Rick was the first to move towards his son, gun raised, cocked, and ready to go. "LET HIM GO. NOW."

Carl struggled against the figure. They weren't that much shorter than Daryl, but the weren't as bulky. The gun against his sons head, that was the threat. Daryl was right beside Rick, crossbow raised and his facial expressions sharp.

The figure was well equipped. A long brown coat over top of what looked like a leather jacket. There was a hint of a utility belt, most of which had guns, knives and a crowbar tucked away. It would have been heavy. Whoever this person was they were not big, but they were strong. A strange looking mask covered their face. It looked like a gas mask, but it didn't stick out of their face largely, it was mostly flat, and covered from the chin to the eyes. The coat had a hood, which was up. So no hair colour or anything was visible.

That's what made them look scary. With all this equipment on, they looked inhuman. Like anything could be hiding away underneath the mask.

"Dad!" Carl's struggling voice brought Rick out of the fog and back into the situation at hand.

"You let my son go RIGHT NOW or I will shoot you!"

They didn't move. They only spoke. A muffled and indistinguishable voice underneath the mask. "Where is he?"

Rick and Daryl looked at each other. "Where's who?" It was Daryl who asked this time.

The figure pulled Carl closer towards the gun. The voice spoke much more firm this time. As if their patience were thinning away with each moment. "You know who. Where is he?"

Rick took a step towards his son and the gun got a little bit closer to Carl's temple. "We don't know who you're talking about. Just give me my son and we'll leave you alone."

"If you don't tell me where he is I'll shoot the boy right in front of you!" The voice was getting louder, still unable to determine anything about it other then it was much angrier then before.

"Where is WHO?" Rick yelled.

Carl made an "Arg" sound as he was violently shifted from being held at gunpoint, to being grabbed across the front of his chest and pulled towards the figures torso. The gun was now pointed elsewhere.

At Daryl.

With a mighty passion in their voice, the figure yelled at the redneck directly.

"YOU'RE BROTHER. WHERE'S YOUR BROTHER YOU PIECE OF SHIT?


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2! Hope you like it! You can play any song you like from the 70's or 80s for the scene that mentions music, but I personally imagine it as Come and Get Your Love by Redbone, a little Guardians of the Galaxy inspired. I do not own the Walking Dead, if it did it would have little to no plot and no one would watch it. Anything you don't recognize belongs to me.**

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><p>Birds were still out tweeting, kids in the streets running and yelling trying to avoid going home, the sun was setting a beautiful gold over the city skyline - or at least, that was how the Georgia evenings used to look. No one could exactly say the same now.<p>

Birds hardly ever made a sound, there weren't enough kids to fill a street, and if there was, they certainly wouldn't be running and yelling in happiness. The sun still sets a gold over the city, but now it emanates a certain feeling of glum and doom, rather then showcase the beauty of the state.

Heavy footsteps made their quick way towards Bran's Pharmacy. It wasn't the ideal location, but for the set up inside and the security already done to the building it would have to do. Dead walkers surrounded the front, which normally would have been cleaned up. But they looked vaguely threatening especially when dusk would set in. Kind of a, "don't fuck with me I killed all these" sort of vibe.

To the untrained eye it seemed as if there was no way in except for the front door, which was guarded by a wooden piece set up to keep it shut. Right near the back a pile of dead walkers sat a top of an entrance to the basement. Why it was build in the first place is unknown, but it was convenient none the less.

All that had to be done was move one particular one out of the way, push the door open, climb inside, move the walker back into position and close the door back up. It was a bit of a task, but a life saver when it came to keeping it safe from other people.

The basement was dark. A slight drip was leaking from a pipe somewhere in a dark corner, and a single light bulb had been recently wired up to give the place enough lighting to see.

Not that anyone could see well through this mask, but it was intimidating enough to warrent wearing it outside. But it was inside and suddenly the mask, the hood and the coat was far too heavy.

Pulling it off slowly, a giant breathe was taken along with a cough. "Fuck it smells down here."

The stairs smelt better. She had no idea why the basement smelled, but she had no intention of finding out why. No walkers were down there nor were any living people, so she would just have to live with it. No need meddling down in the dark more then she had too.

The second floor was where she called home. It was a place she was used too. It once held more life then just a lone woman, but now it was just her, her weapons, her supplies, and whatever she managed to hook up with a generator or two.

Talia had that on her. She knew how to work a generator, get some power. She used it minimally, but she was happy it was still working.

Powering a generator wasn't the only thing she had that made her happy. It was the thing sitting on the table that did it too. A little mp3 player. It didn't hold much being as old as it was, but she loved it none the less. Made the quiet a little less frightening.

Both ear buds went in, the power was on, and the play button was pushed. Presto. Talia was once again in her own little world. Whoever it belonged to before had put a collection of old music on here, but it was something. She wasn't complaining. It made her feel warm.

And thus began her routine for the evening. Making sure the generators on the third and fourth floor were still powering, had enough juice in them. Checking all the lights for power, and making sure each security camera she managed to wire up still would work if she were to turn it on.

The supply room was next. Talia walked the aisles of food and medicine with a spring in her step. Maybe mouthing some of the words of the song she didn't recognize, but had heard countless times.

She jumped onto a box and spun a little with her arms spread out, singing the chorus out to herself, moving her body back and forth. Less representing a 20 something woman dancing in a club, and looked far more like a dad who had far too much to drink at the family barbeque.

Talia counted in her head what number of which item should be there, and it always was. There weren't many people in the area to raid this place, and she had rigged the place up with traps to try and catch them anyway.

As the song continued so did Talia. 'Moving and grooving' as her mother would have called it, song still playing in her ears. She made her way towards the main are where her stuff sat to settle for the night to eat and seep.

That's when she sound hit her ears. A slam.

She whipped around pulling out her earbuds to try and recognize the sound. The front door. Someone had pulled out the wooden block and opened the door. It had broken a long time ago, and she had set up the wood so that it would stay shut as long as no one turned the knob.

Someone was inside the building. Talia all but ran towards the main room where she had a crappy monitor all set up. It looked like it was from the 80's, but it worked. Her generators could support how little power it needed.

She turned it on and immediately scrolled through the camera feeds on different floors. Her brain was in a panic, she wasn't even breathing. Just holding her breath looking for whichever was the first floor.

Then she found it. The camera on the first floor beeped on and gave her a live feed.

"Oh fuck fuck fuck...shit.." Talia muttered to herself. She didn't recognize the face. It was a tall man with a slight beard. She looked at the other two also in the view of the camera.

There is what looked like a child, and another one with a cross bow.

"Crossbow..." She zoomed in just enough to see him. The bearded man had spotted the camera and was walking towards it to get a better look, but Talia just stared. She knew the other man. She knew him all too well.

If he was here, then that mean's Merle wasn't far off. Thick was thieves they were, Talia remembered that very well. The first man was about to spring the shelves in the rafters but Talia didn't care.

Flinging on all her gear, coat, hood, mask, she grabbed her gun and run down the stairs. Luck was on her side. The kid was within grabbing distance.

An opportunity. So she took it. He was stronger than she expected him to be, and he yelled out a mighty "Let me go!" He had a gun, but she had one too. And Talia's was facing the kids head. The bearded one who sprang the trap was the first to respond.

"LET HIM GO, NOW." He was angry. The dad, that was an easy one to pin.

Daryl was right beside him. She had no idea who either of those people were, but they were no good if that piece of redneck trash was with them. Talia didn't waste the short time she knew she had to deal with this.

"Dad!" Yep. He was the dad alright, and she was holding a gun to his kids head.

"You let my son go RIGHT now or I will shoot you!" This guy didn't even bother to waste his time bargaining with her. She didn't blame him. She was fully aware of how intimidating all this gear made her look.

"Where is he?" She asked the trio, it may have been to vague. Their very next question would be who, but at this point Talia was way to beyond terrified to think rationally about what she was going to say.

"Where's who?" She had half a mind to shoot Daryl right there. Her hand pulled the kid closer towards the gun on instinct of that thought.

"You know who. Where is he."

The bearded man took a step towards his son. Talia pushed the gun closer to his head more intentionally. "We don't know who you're talking about. Just give me my son and we'll leave you alone."

Ah. There was the more desperate bargaining Talia was looking for on the first try. Still. It wasn't the answer she wanted. She was going to have to be a little more threatening.

"If you don't tell me where he is I'll shoot the boy right in front of you!" In retrospective, Talia had no idea whether or not she'd actually do it in the heat of the moment, or if she was just blowing smoke directly out of her ass for the sake of being dramatic.

"Where is WHO?" The man yelled.

She had enough. She shifted her weight just enough to grab the struggling kid and hold him against her chest tightly so he couldn't escape.

Her gun was now pointed directly at Daryl, who looked rightly confused like the fucking idiot he always was. If these guys were going to yell at her, she was going to yell back.

"YOU'RE BROTHER. WHERE'S YOUR BROTHER YOU PIECE OF SHIT?!"


End file.
